Anyway, back in action now, and I realized tonight that although it was snowing two weeks ago, today summer has definitely arrived.  Many of the rhododendrons and azaleas are out, and the Hebe is scenting the air with its delicious fragrance.  My magnolia tree is also just breaking into flower.

Near the Goil Inn this morning, I noticed that the swallows and house martins are back and enjoying their dust baths in the dried up mud in the car park.

This afternoon, two huge red deer were grazing in the back garden – they seem to have lost a lot of their fear of us.

All is beautiful and serene, nature settles into her short warm drowse, and human residents of the Highlands prepare for the arrival of the summer enemy – the dreaded midgie.

So last year they first became a serious menace in the first week in June. The Midge Magnets broadly kept them under control during the day in the garden, provided you didn’t turn over the soil and that the weather was not exceptionally muggy, but there were a lot of walks that were just undoable without a net on between June and the start of August. In addition, even in the garden you couldn’t go out in the evening if the weather was still. It will be interesting to see what happens this year as it has been a great deal colder.

On a different note I am a bit concerned about our water lilies which are not showing much sign of life yet and may have been killed by the unseasonable frosts.

Having said this – the midges are not really as bad here as we thought they were going to be (so far at least). On most days they are only bad in the late evening and on sunny days or when there is a breeze you don’t really see them at all. There is just the odd day where warmth, still air and recent rain brings out the clouds.

The mosquito munchers are still greatly reducing the general population – we are filling the net on the one at the back approx. every 48 hours. So it is making a difference although so far we are not seeing a great falling off in numbers of new ones we are catching.

The idea of the machines is that they emit a stream of carbon dioxide (the same thing as attracts the midge to humans)which is attractive to the female of the species. The females are then sucked into the machine in huge numbers, meaning that not only are they not present to bite and generally harass people, but also that they don’t breed. The idea is that after a while the whole area is cleared of them and only newcomers blown in by the wind will appear in the machine’s territory.

We put the machines on for the first time several weeks ago – and for ages they caught virtually nothing – largely because outside my paranoia there was nothing much to catch. Then about 10 days ago I was attacked for the first time, and all of a sudden – the machines started to work overtime. Not jesting or exaggerating, but there is a net inside the machine which holds about a litre – and it is filling up with dead midges every 48 hours – one in the front garden and one in the back. Literally it is catching and killing many thousands of them every day – and already we are noticing the difference big time.

I am still having to wear a net if I am in the polytunnel or gardening in the evenings, but in the normal run of things in the garden during the day we are not seeing very many – except in the immediate vicinity of the machines which have clouds of them queuing up to be sucked in. The Smidge is also very effective – not only stops the bites but (to some extent) keeps them right away – also it doesn’t have the effect of the Deet based stuff and melt any plastic you touch with it on your hands!

The video attached shows the machine in operation, as well as the Rhododendrons in full bloom and Schrodi out enjoying himself. He is too furry to be bothered much by midges – although he has had a few ticks this summer off the deer which keep coming into the garden.